Michael B. Duff

It may be too cute for its own good, but this video is a nice encapsulation of why Facebook matters.

Technically this cat stands up to TWO alligators. Twelve feet of scaly death? Supercat is not impressed.

You can sign up for a Facebook message invite here, if you're brave enough to try the new Facebook email.

Her speech was awesome. She actually thanked Sarah Palin!

Purely a visual gag here, but it made me laugh so hard I was clinically dead for two minutes.

"This just can't exist. Gwyneth Paltrow is the product of a joint partnership between Williams Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, and Ina Garten to make us all jealous and want to buy their wealthy white folks summery breezy lifestyle products. There is no Gwyneth Paltrow. Jeffrey Steingarten was actually just interviewing a ripple of light and some dandelion fuzz…"

If you feel like you’re about to sneeze and don’t want to, place your index finger across the area just above your lip horizontally, like you’re pretending to give yourself a mustache. Then, press gently but firmly. This cuts off the signal to your brain to sneeze, and you will not sneeze.

"The only place the hatred mentioned by Mr. Brooks consistently arises is in the political arena, for it’s there that Jones takes from Smith and Smith tries to protect himself from Jones. In that setting, both persons naturally oppose, curse, and hate the other. This hatred will only intensify the more our lives are politicized, whether by ‘Progressives’ or by ‘national-greatness’ conservatives."

No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible; the collapse of civic life only encourages more lying, cheating, and stealing. Lacking faith in one another, they fall back on themselves and their families.

Remember, only crazy libertarian conspiracy nuts buy gold. And…maybe people who understand inflation. Will China's tightening put a lid on American commodity prices? Gold is way down from its peak last week. Not sure if food and oil will follow, but decreased demand from China could be just what we need to keep prices from spiking. My only regret is that this may take pressure off Bernanke long enough for him to do some real damage. I still think inflation is delayed, not dead.

The first arcology. Long overdue.

"Do not doubt that a Mercader has been sent after him already," the Kremlin official said, referring to Russian agent Ramon Mercader, who murdered exiled Bolshevik Leon Trotsky with an ice axe in 1940 in Mexico."

Two seconds after watching it move, every synapse in your brain will be screaming in terror/hate.

QOTD: "You just sent an email to Dr. Lawrence with a subject of: A Terrible Growth. Facebook Mail has automatically posted this to your wall"

"Look, I know we're on a mission, but I just don't FEEL like being an exquisitely-trained killing machine right now, okay?"

Allowing gamers to take a virtual run at what clandestine ops have been trying to do for half a century "stimulates sociopathic attitudes in North American children and adolescents," they say.

QOTD: "We've pretty much reached a time when there are more people who want to write than who want to read so contracts like Frey's are sort of a forgone conclusion."

Wow. Even Gawker commenters can't defend this guy.

Holographic rock star creeps me the hell out.

[Maybe we should pass a Constitutional amendment to protect gun owners. I wonder if we could get the votes.] "New Jersey gun laws are insane," Nappen says. "It makes a criminal of every gun owner and forces him to prove his innocence."

The EU's statistical agency Eurostat issued its final revision of Greece's accounts for the past four years, triggering a new forecast by Athens that its public deficit this year would reach 9.4 percent of output, breaching a 8.1-percent target.

Atlas shrugs in Dallas…